


Trigger Finger

by afterthree



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterthree/pseuds/afterthree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might be reluctantly, it might be angrily, it might even be to his death and despair, but Eliot would ultimately always go where he pointed, and Nate never understood it, not until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trigger Finger

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a long time since I wrote fic, and this is my first foray into the Leverage fandom. This started out as a piece of meta about the relationship between Nate and Eliot, but somehow I think it makes more sense as fic.

"The worst thing I ever did in my life I did for Damien Moreau."

There it is, Nathan thinks. That's what I was missing.

He is satisfied, breathing deep as the haphazard pieces of the confounding mystery that is -- that _was_ \-- Eliot Spencer slot effortlessly into place. Not the details of course, but Nate knows details rarely matter when it comes to deciphering what makes people tick. Understand the patterns, and you understand the person.

 _The worst thing I ever did in my life..._

From the first Nate guessed there was violence woven throughout Eliot's past, and probably more than a few literal skeletons buried in deep graves (never shallow ones with Eliot, never so sloppy, never a job half done), but the bodies were less confounding than the path they outlined.

There was very little information available on Eliot Spencer. Nate should know, he had spent a considerable amount of time looking for it. Someone had done one hell of a cleanup job, and the only records that remained were more reputation than fact. It was probable Eliot had financed the scrub himself, and it had the air of tailored work: legends are most useful to those who walk the fine line between elite skill and impossibility, and Eliot's the closest thing to a living, breathing myth Nathan has ever met.

Still, there was enough of a framework left to put together a broad strokes timeline, one that brought up more questions than it answered. Eliot had been a government man for a long time, but not military, not exactly. Something more isolating, more compartmentalized. Silent. Black Ops probably, maybe intelligence. All that remains of those years are a few burned aliases, a list of second and third world countries a mile long, and, according to Nate's sources, quite a collection of blacked-out code-word clearance paperwork.

Then the story slides sideways into the life of a retrieval mercenary, and it's all so haphazard, so scatter shot for a while, until Eliot Spencer suddenly ceases to exist and disappears from record entirely. For almost three years the trail goes cold; not a parking ticket, not a credit card receipt, not a whisper of man or myth until he surfaces again as a "person of interest" in a news story about a Philadelphia bank robbery. After that it's back to aimless wandering and walk-away retrieval work, right up until that business with Dubenich and Bering Aerospace.

 _... I did for Damien Moreau._

Those missing three years are the Moreau years, perhaps remembered now only by Eliot and Moreau himself (it depends on the typical lifespan of those in the employ of arms dealers of course, and Moreau seems to favour shorter expiration dates). Nate knows enough about Moreau to draw two conclusions: the first, that Eliot's tale is considerably darker than originally calculated; and second, that Eliot must have walked away from Moreau by his own volition, under mutually agreeable terms, to still be alive and kicking.

Neither of these revelations are overly shocking, and Nate files them away as details to be examined later. The what isn't as important as the who and the why, and with this missing piece of Eliot's history Nate has the Rosetta Stone he needs to make sense of the pendulum swings from light to dark and back again.

From the very beginning what confounded Nate the most was Eliot's unflinching, unwavering loyalty. Not loyalty to the group (not at first, those ties had taken longer to build, though they were there now, binding them all in complex ways not even he could properly predict) but loyalty to Nathan himself.

Eliot wasn't empty muscle: there was a strategic, sharp mind at work in there, one that was as comfortable with subtlety and charm as it was with brute force. Eliot was a general, not a thug, and yet... he chose to follow Nathan Ford. Not without question, no (sometimes there was such a fury of criticism and rebuke he could hardly keep up, resorted to swatting them down through the haze without examination just to keep from drowning), but then, yes, very much without question.

It might be reluctantly, it might be angrily, it might even be to his death and despair, but Eliot would ultimately always go where Nate pointed, and Nate never understood it, not until now.

 _... for Damien Moreau._

That one little word finally breaks Eliot open for Nate to see inside, and he understands how the patriot could become the villain and how the hitter can have a heart of gold.

Not with Damien Moreau. For Damien Moreau.

There’s something in Eliot that needs to follow like Nate needs the drink, and it doesn’t matter who or where, not really. He may have tamed the beast inside, but he’s never felt worthy of controlling it, of aiming it and pulling the trigger (how he’d hate that metaphor like he hated the things themselves, and hate Nathan all the more for making it), of choosing who lives and who dies or maybe just barely lives and almost dies.

Eliot’s a man in search of a master, and without one he’s lost. He needs the mission to make him feel whole, because without it he’s just a hitter. A man like that, he has his own code of ethics but has no use for morality, and so a man like Damien Moreau (a monster, yes, but a great one, one with vision and mastery and such control) makes an appealing master. Moreau knows exactly how to wield a tool like Eliot, just like the US military does.

Just like Nate does.

Somewhere along the way Eliot walked away from Moreau. Regret has a way of creeping up on even the hardest man, and maybe time revealed Eliot’s moral compass had a direction after all. But there’s still a loyalty there, after all this time and under all that anger. Eliot kept Moreau’s confidences, through the whole of the last year when they were hunting him, and Nate suspects even this small betrayal will bother the hitter for some time.

And now? Nate’s found himself carrying the basket holding all Eliot’s eggs.

It doesn’t really matter whether or not Nate thinks he’s the right man to master the weapon he’s been given because Eliot’s already decided who owns him. That’s the curious thing about relationships bound by loyalty: the master in the equation doesn’t get to decided when it begins or when it ends, only how to shape the bit in between.

It’s a heavy basket (heavier than he thought, now he knows Moreau’s put some eggs in there) and Nate doesn’t know how long he can carry it through this minefield of a path he’s drawing for them all without cracking a couple. He doesn’t want to know what Eliot looks like when he cracks, doesn’t want to be responsible for breaking a man and maybe pushing the pendulum back the other way.

But mostly Nate just wants to be the man Eliot needs him to be and earn what he’s been given. And there’s no time to waste, not not. Another day Nate can wonder how much of all this Eliot is aware of and how much is just part of his underlying fabric, but for now there’s work to be done and Eliot hasn’t told him everything. He’s waiting for Nate to ask because that’s how this works.

“So,” Nate says, meeting Eliot’s eye evenly across the pavement. “You said Moreau is going to give you details on the auction tomorrow. Why tomorrow?”

Eliot doesn’t hesitate: “Because he wants me to do something for him first.”

“I’ll bet he does.”

It’s a test, of course. For him. For Eliot. For both of them.

There’s a final transfer of power happening right here and right now, and Eliot’s more ready than Nate is. Eliot’s done this before and Nate’s still just figuring out where all the pieces go, but at least now he understands what the picture’s supposed to look like.

He asks and Eliot answers, ready to follow. Ready to fire.

Nate pulls the trigger.


End file.
